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Child care scandals threaten J. Bush image DCF FL
Sounds to me like it's time to replace ol' Jeb Bush. But then, the
country did "appoint" his brother as president...the man who governed the state with the second to lowest performing public school system with one of the highest levels or school corporal punishment. Go figure. This is the man who bravely leads the 21st century into school reform and refuses to protect children from physical assault by school administrators. If only my state could sink so low! LaVonne Fern5827 wrote: FWD asfp: Subject: Child-care scandals threaten Bush image From: wexwimpy Date: 2/23/2004 1:54 PM Eastern Standard Time Message-id: Child-care scandals threaten Bush image Troubles at three state agencies that deal with children threaten to mar Gov. Jeb Bush's legacy, and Democrats prepare to use the scandals against him and his brother. BY PETER WALLSTEN AND LESLEY CLARK Jeb Bush has long flourished as Florida's Teflon governor, surviving bitter partisan battles over his reshaping of state government with high approval ratings and even a landslide reelection. But swirling scandals enveloping the agencies in his administration that are responsible for taking care of children now threaten to soil Bush's legacy on a centerpiece of his political agenda: improving the lives of those he has called Florida's ``most vulnerable.'' The most pointed criticism has come in recent days from Republicans and Democrats alike, outraged over the events that led to the death in June of a teenager in the custody of Bush's Department of Juvenile Justice -- an occurrence that was followed by criminal charges against two nurses, the firing of several officials and the departure on Friday of the department's head, Secretary Bill Bankhead. At the same time, critics continue to focus attention on the 2002 revelation that the state's massive child welfare agency, the Department of Children & Families, lost track of a 5-year-old girl, Rilya Wilson, who remains missing. Bush moved swiftly to clean house, but the agency is mired in new controversies over the infusion of religious doctrine by the governor's latest appointee to head the department. And Bush's Department of Education is under fire for financial abuses in a voucher program that thrived under the governor's education package that was passed soon after he took office. Bush has succeeded so far in treating each controversy as an isolated case, but Democrats are now preparing to toss them together in an explosive election-year brew designed to weaken the governor's popularity -- and make Florida's 27 electoral votes that much more difficult for his brother, the president, to win in November. GOVERNOR'S IMAGE ''He's going to be viewed as an anti-child governor,'' said state Rep. Dan Gelber, a Miami Beach Democrat who sits on the legislative committee investigating the case of 17-year-old Omar Paisley. The teenager died while in the Department of Juvenile Justice's Miami lockup after agency officials failed to treat him for appendicitis. ''In terms of how this state takes care of its children, this governor has been an abysmal failure,'' Gelber added. The assault on the governor mirrors efforts by national Democrats to criticize President Bush for what they say is cutting taxes on the rich while neglecting the needs of the poor and working-class families. Gov. Bush added more ammunition for those critics in Florida last month, when he proposed a state budget that would once again cut taxes on wealthy investors but would not significantly trim a waiting list of tens of thousands of poor children in need of healthcare. The governor and his aides vehemently defend him as an advocate for children. They say that under his leadership, the state has increased the number of insured children while lifting standards for child-welfare workers, cutting back on the amount of time children spend in foster care, and boosting adoption rates. The governor's office is also quick to list his achievements: rising reading comprehension scores for fourth-graders and improving test scores for blacks and Hispanics under a new education system centered on accountability and standardized testing. Bush has also pushed to reduce waiting lists of the developmentally disabled for services, making the issue a hallmark of his election campaigns, although a new waiting list is considerably larger than the one Bush inherited. GOVERNOR RESPONDS ''We've dramatically increased the number of children that have insurance; 755,000 more children have insurance now than did five years ago,'' the governor told The Herald on Friday. ``We've doubled the money going to the child welfare system in the past five years. The number of children that are in foster care -- the amount of time that they're in foster care -- has declined. The quality of the case workers has improved. 'Soft on kids' issues? I'm not sure what that means. But if it means we haven't focused on kids' issues, that's completely wrong.'' Still, the recent troubles in the governor's administration are treacherous in an election year with competitive races from the presidency to the U.S. Senate and the state Legislature -- especially when some of the most vocal criticism has come from Bush's own Republican ranks. HOUSE INQUIRY State Rep. Gus Barreiro, a Miami Republican, has led the charge to investigate Paisley's death, even issuing subpoenas to force testimony before a special House committee. One agency whistleblower who testified last week called the Miami juvenile justice lockup where Paisley died a ``train wreck.'' Bush's opponents will also allege a racial undercurrent in each of the controversies -- a point that could help drive voter turnout in one of the Democratic Party's most pivotal constituencies. Rilya Wilson, the girl the child welfare agency lost, is black. So was Paisley, the dead teenager. The voucher program and Bush's testing-based education agenda have been attacked by civil rights leaders as punishing black children. CHOICES QUESTIONED Critics assail the governor for appointing agency chiefs who would toe the party line rather than fight for funding increases and other changes. Bankhead and Education Secretary Jim Horne were both Republican state senators from Northeast Florida and political allies of Bush, while Children & Families Secretary Jerry Regier was a leading Christian conservative activist and a player in Oklahoma Republican politics before coming to Florida in 2002. None of those agency heads has performed ''to the level that I personally think they should have,'' said state Sen. Frederica Wilson, a Miami Democrat who has been an outspoken critic of Bush's child-welfare and education agencies. ``They weren't put into place based on qualifications, they were put into place based on whether they would dance to the governor's music.'' Bush aides dispute the accusation, saying that each secretary brought specific skills to the job. Bankhead was instrumental in creating the juvenile justice agency, while Horne was active on education issues and Regier headed an Oklahoma juvenile justice agency. ''They were all appointed because they have a wealth of experience and background in their particular areas,'' said Jill Bratina, Bush's spokeswoman. Nevertheless, Bush is clearly on the defensive. Late Friday, minutes after a Herald story about Bankhead's departure appeared on the newspaper's website, the governor sent an e-mail to the reporter who exposed the details of Paisley's death and wrote the story about the agency chief's leaving. Referring to an assertion that Paisley's death would overshadow Bankhead's tenure, Bush called the story ``insensitive and incorrect.'' ''Bill Bankhead's legacy will be that there has been a drop in juvenile crime and a drop in the number of juveniles being adjudicated as adults,'' Bush wrote. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8017605.htm Defend your civil liberties! Get information at http://www.aclu.org, become a member at http://www.aclu.org/join and get active at http://www.aclu.org/action. |
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